[Foundation-l] Strategy document?

Tue Sep 30 14:17:27 UTC 2008

On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 9:58 AM, Bryan Tong Minh
<bryan.tongminh at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 7:06 AM, John at Darkstar <vacuum at jeb.no> wrote:
>
> > I believe that some kind of document, describing whats important to add
> > to Mediawiki, and why, is very important for the overall community. This
> > would give us an opportunity to clarify why we want to do something and
> > how we would like to do such a thing. It will also make it possible to
> > approach specific benefactors, patrons and donors, especially those that
> > share a common goal with us.
> >
>
> Just as a clarification, things that are important but may seem to be
> neglected are not neglected because the developers think it is a bad
> idea, but usually because there is no developer available who has the
> time for it, especially if it concerns large projects.
>
>
> Bryan
>
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Agreed. We've got an excellent team of mostly volunteers who develop
MediaWiki. As volunteers, we get a bit of freedom to decide for ourselves
what we want to work on. Mostly its things that are interesting or
particularly
useful.

The hard bugs, especially Parser bugs, get less lovin' because of just that:
they're hard. Most volunteer developers would rather work on something
that interests them as opposed to a really hard-to-fix edge case for the
Parser ;-)

That being said, MediaWiki is currently developed to address the needs
of the community first, and I think we do a very good job at that. I know
most developers are active on IRC (#mediawiki), and mailing lists
(wiktech-l is a great resource). I know several developers keep an eye
on the English Wikipedia's Village Pump (technical). There certainly is
a lot of communication going back and forth these days, and that's a
very good thing to see.

As far as sitting down and formulating a formal roadmap, I can see the
benefit. There is [[mw:MediaWiki roadmap]], but it's largely shaped by
developers. Perhaps the community could develop its own roadmap and
we can keep the MediaWiki.org one a bit more updated with community
ideas as well?

The recent influx of developers has brought a lot of talent, and I
personally am excited to see where development heads over the
next months and years.

-Chad